Hi All,

This site costs about $150 per year to run. This will be my third year paying the hosting bill.

With my son headed off to college, I need to tighten up the budget. It would be nice to break even on the site - I don't need more than that.

Here are some possibilities:

) Ask for donations.
) Run Ads.
) Give up hosting the site for the time being.

I think that asking for donations is both embarrassing and more trouble than it's worth. I didn't even mention a subscription model - I think that would give the majority of folks quite a chuckle on their last visit.

I'd like to keep things running, even though we still haven't seen a level of growth or participation that could be considered encouraging.

So, right now, unless better ideas come up, I'm leaning toward implementing ads on the site, to see if that produces anything. I don't like this idea, but it's the best one I have at the moment.

Comments and discussion are welcome. Let me know what you think.

Stan

Hi All!

This thread is dedicated to my new DIY Air Sled Appliance Mover project.

I will be adding detail and images here over time, but for now, I'll just post the links to my new youtube videos about the project:

AirSledPartOne (Introduction)
https://youtu.be/rXlGrO5wgc0

AirSledPartTwo (Demonstration)
https://youtu.be/A_QRhoSmIrQ

Check them out, and let me know what you think! (Be kind, these are my first ever illustrative videos).

Stan

A year ago we were visiting SW FL, now we own a winter home here plus all the new to us repainting, minor repairs, landscaping, etc.  This house has a small chemical reactor, er, pool and spa, an ongoing project to keep the chemical levels where they should be.  I think it gets more maintenance than swimming time.  Never had banana babies before; banana plants have one bunch per stalk and then die but spread through new sprouts from rhizomes.  No actual bananas, that takes the traditional 9 months, but the babies sprout pretty quick after transplanting.  Everything grows about 4x faster than in the north, and maybe closer to 10x the great white moose swamp.  We're on a coastal island, and yes it has a fair amount of swampland making it good for moose.

We got stuck here for the summer due to some medical issues that were a lot easier to have treated in the close by big city than in rural Upper Michigan, 30 minute drive instead of 4 to 8 hours.

Because of trailer space limitations all my wood and metal working tools got left up north, along with the 3D printers and supplies.  A Prusa i3 mk3s and the multi-filament gadget are starting to look real attractive, not to mention searching craigslist for bigger tools; Mrs. Moose just said no to a 10" x 4 1/2' south bend metal lathe, plus the decent looking wood lathes that have gone by.   I need a chauffeur while my knee is healing so I can't use the beg forgiveness approach, plus the 2 car garage is on the small side and filled with a boat restoration project that likely cost some points.  Q3 appears totally dead although I haven't tried googling the participants lately.

Looks like the forum continues onwards, with enough posts to remain interesting. I'll try and check back more often now there's some spare time starting to appear.  Every house project takes many times more time than you expected...

Kirk

Hi All,

I had been dragging my feet getting my Kudo3D Bean set up. Lots of issues to solve, and I didn't really have a project to help drive me to get things going.

Well, this evening, my son grabbed the printer, got it set up, and started a print!

So, that's happening . The print is supposed to be the Rook with the internal staircase and helix. It's supposed to take 6 hours. Not the fastest machine ever...

Right now, it's not done enough that I  can even see if there is anything materializing under the build plate. But if there is something, I will post a picture of it tomorrow.

Anticipation...

Stan

Hi All,

I'm working on something that should be quite interesting, assuming that it works out successfully .

Here's a picture of a small piece of it, printing out on the CR-10.

(My internet is down, so I'm posting directly from my phone, if I can figure out how)

More to follow, I have a lot of printing to do, and need a lot of luck for the project to work.

Enjoy, 
Stan

Attached Files

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Marlin P. Jones & Associates (mpja.com) carries close outs fom manufacturers, and used parts.  They are a good source of cheap, off-brand or closed-out steppers, arduino shields, and other odds and ends.

If you go to purchase a stepper from them, make sure they have the datasheet available for download, or you can get the datasheet from another source.  Get the datasheet before you make a purchase.

They don't have free shipping, like Amazon, but they do have flat rate shipping, which is not too expensive.

Okay, kind of a dumb question:

Many 3D printers come with a fan, and I am never quite sure sure what it is there to do.

Is it blowing on the print head?  This would seem counterintuitive, as you are heating up the print head to melt the filament for extrusion.

Or, is it blowing just *past* the print head, on to the freshly extruded plastic to firm it up?

I am asking as I have an idea for a new print head, and the fan would be in an oddball position.  So I would use duct work to direct the air where it should go.

I just need to know where the air should go, so I design the ducts right.

So, I'm working on my post with the OneUp V2 files in it (which I plan to title "OneUp Critical Files").

Some forums have the ability to make a post into a "sticky."  In other words, it is always at the top, for easy access.  Many times, an Administrator will post the Forum Rules, or tips on using the forum, and make such a post a sticky, so new users see it at the top of the list of available posts.

Should we make the "Critical Files" posts a sticky, and does this forum even permit the stickiazation (is that a word?) of posts?

If we cannot sticky, should we make "Critical Files" (or maybe "Downloadable Stuff") a separate Forum category?  We could move my SIDEBRACE Redesign post  to that category, as well.  We would only post stuff for download (firmware files, parts designs, etc.) in this category.  That way, it is all in one place.

Also, I am doing my attachment inventory as a table.  In HTML, there is a TABLE tag, and this forum's tags (click View Source icon, at the right end of the post editor toolbar, to see the tags) tend to follow standard HTML, EXCEPT for the TABLE tag.  I am relegated to changing to a fixed-width font (what this forum calls "Courier-New"), and doing "ASCII Art," in order to draw the lines around the cells in my table-looking thing.

Is "draw tables" a feature that is turned off, or is it just not available with this particular site software?

These are not actual things.  Rather, they are collections of things.  QU-BD things!

https://www.thingiverse.com/admiralaudio...woup-parts

https://www.thingiverse.com/ValkCrafter/...p-upgrades

If anyone else has some good links to OneUp/TwoUp/ThreeUp parts collections, please share them here.  Let's (please) keep this thread dedicated to COLLECTIONS of things, and not just individual things.

Thanks.

Okay.  Nobody has ever posted here, so I guess I'll give it a shot.

My fertile mind (fertile = full of...uh...fertilizer) has been envisioning a multi-(more than two)-headed extruder for 3D printing.

The bottom of the assembly is a Base Plate, where the heatbreaks come in from above, and protrude through to the heatblocks, which would be up against the Base Plate.  This plate would bolt to the rest of the extruder body, which would most likely be 3D-printed plastic.

   

Since this plate contacts the 3D-printed plastic body of the extruder, it must be made of a material that resists heat transfer.  It also must resist heat transfer, as it holds multiple heater blocks, and you don't want the hotter heater blocks influencing the cooler heater blocks around them.

The bolts (that hold the Base Plate on) also hold on the alignment plate.  This part is under the Base Plate with the heater blocks.  Besides keeping the heater blocks from twisting and touching one another, it must also act as a heat shield, to prevent hotter heat blocks/heads from influencing the temperatures of the cooler heat blocks/heads around them.

   

So, what do I make these parts from?  It has to be something easily drillable/cutable/machinable.  Or maybe printable?   Oh yeah, and don't forget cost-effective (i.e. CHEAP).

I saw something on Amazon called homasote, as I searched for "heat resistant board."  But, I dunno.  It may be good for soldering on, but can it handle multiple heater blocks up against it for long periods of time?

Any ideas?